Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto reached an alignment

According to a letter published by Stephen Diamond, the chair of the Waterfront Toronto board of directors, Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto reached an alignment concerning the Quayside project in Toronto. The alignment touches upon topics such as the scope of the project, the innovation plan, the implementation of roles and responsibilities, governance and privacy, data ownership / intellectual property, and ecosystem developments. These are some of the changes agreed upon by both sides: (1) the scope of the project will be 12 acres instead of 190 acres. If the project proves successful, an expansion will be considered; (2) Sidewalk Labs will not lead the development of the Innovation Plan for the area. Instead, Waterfront Toronto together with Sidewalk Labs would develop a plan which will be subjected to the evaluation of Waterfront Toronto and will be open for further public consultation; (3) Waterfront Toronto will lead all digital governance and privacy matters related to the project, including interactions with government stakeholders while Sidewalk Labs has reaffirmed its commitment to comply with all existing and future privacy legislation, regulations and policy frameworks; (4) personal information will be stored and processed in Canada whereas the company will make commercially reasonable efforts to process and store non-personal data in Canada as well; (5) Sidewalk Labs withdrew its proposal to create and “Urban Data Trust” and agreed not to use the term “Urban Data” but only to use existing terminology and legal constructs; (6) Sidewalk Labs would partner with real estate developers, under the supervision of Waterfront Toronto, rather than act as lead developer as it was originally proposed; (7) the new plan expands the patent pledge from Canadian-only to global, allowing Canadian innovators to have the right to use Sidewalk Labs’ Canadian and foreign patents covering hardware and software digital innovation (8) according to the original plan the public sector would have received 10% of Sidewalk Labs’ profits from Testbed-Enabled Technology for a 10-year period. Instead, the public sector will be entitled to a revenue stream on products and services piloted in Waterfront Toronto-facilitated testbeds, based on global net revenues; and (9) Sidewalk Labs grants Waterfront an irrevocable, perpetual license to use the Site-Specific IP created through the development process. In the months to follow, the Waterfront Toronto will meet with the public to discuss and clarify the resolution of these issues, and a final decision about whether to move forward with the plan will be made by March 31, 2020, by Waterfront Toronto’s Board.